


Reaching Out

by locrianrose



Series: Collegestuck (Not The Best Days Of Your Lives) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, F/F, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Suicide Attempt, in which important conversations take place
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locrianrose/pseuds/locrianrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone is terrible at communication but something still somehow manages to get done even with everyone refusing to talk things out. People are distressed. Stuff gets real. College is attended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxy's not in a good place. (Sollux isn't in the best place either, but he's there.)

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and you really don’t want to be here, but the thought of being back at your apartment complex would be far worse, because if you were there you’d have to walk past Jake’s room, and you’d see him and Dirk more likely than not, and you don’t know if you can handle that right now. In all honesty, you don’t want to be here now, or to be worrying about any of the things that you are. You’d text Janey and ask her to come get you, but you know that she worries too much as it is, and you really don’t want her to bother. This is your fault, and no one else’s, and for now you’d much rather sit and wallow in your self-pity.

There’s another knock on the door, and you let out another sob, finally dragging yourself to your feet, scooping your purse back up, unsteady on your feet. You wipe your eyes, and your hand comes away dirty and you know that your eyeliner’s undoubtedly ruined. If you can stop crying long enough to make it outside, that’ll be enough. You just need to last that long.

It takes at least two tries to get the door open, and you stumble out and bump into the unfortunate soul who’s standing there. Whoever there are, they’re at least a full head taller than you, and you have no intentions of talking to them.

“Roxy?”

You stare blearily at the gangly individual before you who’d been waiting for you to leave the bathroom, and it takes you a moment to remember his name.

“Captor.” You’re swaying, and as much as you hate yourself (and sometimes him, although you’re in no state to remember that now), the sight of someone who you know sends you into tears again, and you don’t know what to say or do. He doesn’t seem to know what to do either, so you brush past him, walking as quickly as you can to the exit.

“Lalonde!” He calls after you, and you don’t care why, because you’re distraught and in no shape to worry about your only rival in your computer science classes now, and you don’t want to give him something to tease you about, because you can’t deal with it now, and you don’t want him to bring this up in class. This is more than you simply showing up tipsy, more than a couple of drinks and absent flirting. This is the worst side of you, and you’re keenly aware of that fact.

There are others staring now, scattered throughout the bar, and you push defiantly through the door to the street, taking a few steps away before you slump down, back against the wall, praying that he’s given up and that you won’t try to have to explain this.

He hasn’t, and you suppose that you know that much about him. Sollux Captor is nothing if not stubbon, and you know that.

“Shit, Roxy.” He’s kneeling awkwardly by you, feeling your forehead, and you’re still crying.

“Go away.” You slur at him, but your heart isn’t in it.

Captor doesn’t seem to know what to say, and you don’t try to say anything else. He’s dialing on his phone, and you dig through your purse shakily, trying to see if yours had made it back there after what you’ve seen before. You find it, but you don’t want to see the picture that’s there, or the apologetic text that Nepeta had sent you, a warning and words of caution that she’d only intended as the best. You can’t let her see you like this, and you don’t want to let her know that it was a message that she’d sent that’d sent you careening like this.

“Roxy.” Sollux is trying to talk to you again, and he does look genuinely nervous, but you’re still crying, and you don’t know what to say. He doesn’t seem to either, and you’re grateful when he stops and gives up.

He awkwardly sits next to you, uncomfortable and unsure as to what to do. He doesn’t try to comfort you, and you’re grateful for that. You cry, and you don’t know how to stop or if you even want to. You’re exhausted, and you feel like you could sleep forever and you’d never want to wake up, and you never want to face any of your friends again, and especially never Jake. You don’t know how you missed the signs, how you couldn’t see that he was interested in Dirk, and you’re more than a little humiliated with how you’ve been acting and the flirting that you’ve been doing with him.

When your tears have slowed, Sollux finally tries to talk to you again.

“D’ you need a ride?”

You, as drunk as you are, think that you’re still too sober to deal with any of this, but you think of how Jane would be disappointed at what’s happened, so you merely nod to him, and try not to cry again.

Sollux is on his phone, and you don’t really care who he’s calling, but you do find out a few minutes later when you’re joined by Aradia, a strangely cheerful girl who you distantly remember from one of your study sessions with Sollux a few weeks ago. Together, she and Sollux help you to your feet, and you’re again infinitely grateful that neither of them try to speak much with you, instead making small talk that you can’t even pretend to care about.

Sollux helps you into the back seat of a battered truck, and after a few moments of talking to Aradia he sits by you. Aradia gets in the front seat, calling back an invitation to buckle up, but neither you or Sollux listen, as you’ve found tears welling in your eyes again.

The ride back to your apartment is mercifully short, and when you arrive there’s just the single light in the kitchen on, and as you stumble up the front walk you desperately hope that it isn’t Nepeta or Jane who’s home now. You don’t know if you could deal with either of them. By some small miracle, it’s just Callie, and while you know she’ll still worry, she won’t attempt to dissect what’s happened quite as much as Jane or Nepeta would, and she also doesn’t know the intricacies of the situation as much.

You leave Sollux Captor standing awkwardly alone on your porch as Callie helps you inside, and you don’t think much of him or Aradia as you retreat to your room, locking Callie out of the room when she steps out to call Jane. You’ll sit here till they manage to contact Nepeta and they get in here, but until that happens you fully intend to drink until you don’t feel anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted as part of another fic in the series, but combined together here.


	2. Old Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat runs into someone he hasn't seen in a while.

You hate this restaurant with all of the strength that you possess, and it takes all that you have to not storm out, but you’re hungry and as much as you loathe it, you need the sustenance.

This is what has brought you, Karkat Vantas, this low. You know that there’s nothing worth eating at your apartment, and you’re definitely not going to ask Gamzee for a ride to the store. Sollux has been moping all day for reasons that you don’t couldn’t care to understand, and you haven’t seen your other roommate in nearly a week, and even if you had, you still wouldn’t ask him. That’s a matter of pride, and they’ve yet to break you.

The woman at the register doesn’t look like she wants to be here any more than you do, and you ignore her the best that you can as you struggle to find something that looks remotely edible.  You eventually decide on a cheap burger and some fries, and then you take your receipt and lurk, prepared to leave the establishment the moment you receive your order.

Even with that, as much as you’re trying to ignore the miserable mix of kids whining to their adults and your fellow college students who can’t find anything else to eat, you still manage to notice something—some idiot who’s got five boxes of chicken nuggets stacked on each other, forming a wall between themselves and the world. It’s disgusting, and you manage to roll your eyes at them before you realize just who is sitting dejectedly behind that wall of nuggets.

Terezi Pyrope is sitting remarkably still, only halfheartedly licking the nugget in her hand, Pyral sitting at her feet with her tail wagging determinedly, and you’re reminded of the notable absence that she’d left in your humanities class earlier—not that you were specifically making sure that she was there, but rather because rarely a day didn’t go by when she didn’t open her mouth and blab to the teacher about something. Yup. You definitely weren’t paying attention to that.

Well, maybe you were. You take your food from the woman at the register, and then you make your way over to chicken town, population one Terezi Pyrope. She notices you when you approach, and you wonder if you’re about to be ambushed by Latula, or worse, Vriska, if they’re here with her.

You don’t really know what to say when you sit down, so you grumble a hello and unwrap your McDonalds, doing your best to think of something to start this conversation and make things less awkward.

“Hey.” You make your greeting as blunt as possible. After all, this is not a social visit, this is merely a ‘you weren’t in class, and I’m really not worried visit.’ Really. You’re sure about that. Absolutely positive.

It takes her a ridiculously long time to respond, and you only blame that in part on the chicken nugget that she’s just mashed into her mouth, coated with a disgusting amount of ketchup.

“Hello, Karkat!” She finally responds, and her voice is mercifully just like you remember it, every bit as grating and impossibly cheerful, even if she does still have a frown pasted on her face. You don’t know why or understand how she always manages to seem like that, but you suppose that if you’d known her better earlier in life, then maybe the two of would have gotten along better.

You don’t really know what to say, so you simply try to eat your food and ignore how she’s now licking ketchup off of a nugget. It’s disgusting, and nothing that you ever want to be forced to see, but yet here you are, watching it willingly.

“What brings you to this fine establishment?” She finally asks you, refusing to be cowed by your silence.

You grunt at that.

“Out of food at the apartment.”

“And so you’ve come here! A fine choice that I would agree with, as you can see!”

You haven’t really honestly talked to Terezi like this, one on one, in a few months, and you aren’t sure what to think. She sounds the same, every bit as annoying as she’s always been, but she’s just—different. And you can’t pinpoint what it is.

“Yeah, whatever.” You finally mumble, glaring at a passing kid who had decided to stare at Pyral. “So, uh, how long’ve you been here?”

“At this point, potentially more than an hour!” She replies, and at that, at least, she cracks a grin. “I believe that the staff would prefer if I was to leave, but they have yet to ask me to leave. Pyral and I are quite comfortable!”

“You missed class.” You state bluntly, and you don’t miss how she wilts at that, and you feel slightly guilty.

“I was unable to make it today, as much as I regret that.”

Her tone is less cheerful with that revelation, and you roll your eyes and make an offer that you’re sure that you’ll regret.

“If Kanaya or whoever can’t walk you to class, you could call me. I mean, I’m going the same place.”

That does make her smile slightly.

“Thank you for that generous offer, Karkat! I’ll be sure to contact you if such an occasion arises!”

It’s weird, because you don’t think that she’s ever needed them to walk her to class before, and you’ve got a bad feeling that she won’t stop pestering you about this now.

“Yeah, just don’t misuse it.”

“I would never!”

But both of you know that she would and will, but neither of you will. It’s nice sitting here, as shitty as McDonalds is, and you can’t think of the last time things were this friendly between the two of you. You’re not really trying to pay too much attention to her, but it’s easy to notice details, to see how wrinkled her shirt is and how she keeps slipping into a frown that she rectifies only when she sees you looking.

It’s making you uncomfortable, and you don’t know what to say. A few more bites, and you’ve finished your meal.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got my number.” You nod to her, and then you make your escape, gracelessly leaving your chair and moving towards the exit.

“Goodbye, Karkat!”

“Yeah, whatever.” You wave, ignoring the fact that it’s not likely that she’ll be able to see it. That’s not your  problem, and with that you leave, ignoring any thoughts of going back to actually see if she’s okay as you hurry out.


	3. Chapter 3

Your name is Terezi Prope, and you think that something might be wrong with you.

Well, more than the usual things that you’ve come to notice. You know that you don’t ever fit into others expectations for you, be they expecting your mother’s daughter, or a very nearly blind girl. You don’t even fit into your own Mother’s ideas of what you should, but you’ve moved past that, and she has as well.

No, it’s none of the usual things that are causing you trouble. It’s something else, far more insidious and something that you know you shouldn’t leave to its own devices for too long. You grew up around Latula, and as much as you tried to allow her to enjoy her shenanigans without being dragged in to any of them, you still found yourself entangled in her business more than you would have wanted to, and you’re more than a little familiar with the things that she struggled with and how things had went until she agreed to get assistance with them.

You’re worried about the way that the things that you used to love no longer interest you, or about how you don’t care about your classes anymore and how you don’t care if you don’t see your roommates or if they talk to you or not. You’d always been able to entertain yourself even when you were alone, but now it’s different. Now you don’t know what to think, and most of the time you don’t want to be around any of them. Seeing Karkat wasn’t something that you’d expected, and it bugs you that he saw you there. You weren’t at your best, you knew that, and while Karkat isn’t exactly the first one you think of when you think of awkwardness free situations, that had been an awfully sad situation. Neither of you had wanted to talk with the other, and it worried you now.

Sure, you’d parted on less than the best terms, but you’d both agreed—or rather you’d pressured him into accepting—that you should both still be friends, as anything less would be unbearably awkward. You did care about him, just not like you had back then. This was going to be better, and it’d just take time.

You finish the second to last box of your chicken nuggets, and in a moment of uncertainty, you extricate your phone from your bag, carefully dictating a text to Siri that you have no doubt that she’ll mangle hopelessly. She tends to do that, and you take a faint amount of happiness from the fact that you know it’ll irritate Latula when she receives it. That done, you tuck it away again, standing and carefully arranging your belongings. You tuck the remaining box of nuggets into your purse, and then you stand, Pyral undoubtedly standing at alert and ready to assist you. You make your way to the exit, and then you go and stand and wait, internally debating what you’ll talk to her about when she does arrive. You’re not sure that you want to think about it, so instead you sit on the curb and pet Pyral, scratching his ears.

Latula does show up, about five minutes later, and from that you know she’s driving, so you assume that she’s managed to convince Porrim allow her to drive her car to get you. You are glad that you won’t be walking the entire way to her current domicile. You’ve only been a few times, preferring to think that your sister didn’t have the best choices of roommates. True, Porrim was Kanaya’s sister, and you assumed that anyone who Kanaya spoke of that highly couldn’t be bad, and you’d interacted enough with Mituna enough over the years to know him well enough to know that he was well intentioned when it came to your sister at the very least, but their fourth roommate was one that you disapproved of greatly. Any Makara was one that you’d choose not to interact with, especially one as disreputable as Kurloz.

“Hey sis!” Latula spoke enthusiastically as you climbed in, carefully letting Pyral settle by your feet before you closed the door.

“Hello, Latula!” You greeted her as brightly as you could, dreading the conversation to come and choosing instead to avoid it for as long as you could.

“So, you said that you wanted to talk? I mean, I’m assuming from the text that I got, and hey, I figured that I’d be right over if my rad sis wanted to chat with me!”

It takes all you have not to sigh in irritation as she draws her sentence out. You’ve been through this with her before, and while you had been enamored with her and her (as you’d learned later) often false enthusiasm when you were young, now it is merely draining and entirely unwelcome.

“I did.” Some of your own feigned enthusiasm slips out of your voice as you speak, and you note that it takes her longer to reply this time.

“Well, girl, just let me know if you want to talk here or home. I told Tuna that you were coming over.”

At that you groan, because you don’t doubt that he’ll text Sollux if he’s in the mood, and then you’ll have to explain to Mr. Appleberry why you’d visit your sister after so long avoiding her and doing so. This is strictly a business visit, and you have no desire to bond with her over this.

“Hey. He lives there too, so I’m not going to cut him out of this.”

“I know that! I was merely thinking about his propensity for being unable to keep such things to himself!”

That will have gotten under her skin, you know that. Sure enough, she doesn’t talk for an even longer amount of time, and you think that perhaps now out of anger she’ll drop the act and genuinely discuss this with you, but when nearly a full minute goes by, you think that perhaps you may have crossed one of her lines. You firmly remind yourself that you do not care, and then you drop a hand down to scratch Pyral behind his ears.

“Shit.” You perk up at her curse, and you turn slightly in her direction, wishing that you could see her face clearly. “Rez, I can’t imagine why you’d want to see your sister.”

You’re under her skin now, and you know that. The car stops, and she opens her door, and you figure that it’s been about enough time for you to be at your destination. As you open your door, you begin to plot a reply.

“Latula, I merely needed someone with your expertise on a topic! I can’t imagine what you’re talking about!”

You take pride in how hard she slams her door, and then you allow Pyral to lead you after her and up to the porch. She opens the door for you, and you enter. That door’s slammed too, and you ignore that.

“Take a seat. I’ll be back in a few.” Another door slams, and you ponder at how many will be shut as such before she consents to discuss this with you.

With Pyral’s help, you make your way over to the couch and hope that her other housemates are out, but you’re unfortunately left in the metaphorical and semi-literal dark. It’s a few minutes while you sit there, idly picking at a loose string, trying to make out what the muffled voices coming from what you assume is the door that Latula just slammed. When it does open again, you sit up a little straighter, assuming that Latula will soon be approaching you.

“Kurloz. Mind giving us a few?”

Well, that’s certainly creepy, but unfortunately unsurprising. You hear another door open and close, much quieter this time, and now you’re sure you’re alone.  Hopefully.

Latula sits down by you on the couch, and you hear something clatter to the floor as she does.

“So, what is it, sis?”

“I have questions that I believe that you’re uniquely suited to answer!” You reply, and you hear her sigh.

“Rez, tell you what. I’ll cut the bullshit if you’ll do the same. What do you want?”

There’s a surprising amount of hostility in her voice, and while you’re glad that she’s taking this seriously now, you aren’t sure how to address any of this? You don’t know how to explain what you’re going to say, let alone how to do so in a way that would render yourself vulnerable to her.

You are talking to her for a reason, though, and you know that, so you sigh, and nod.

“I have questions.”

“That’re so important that you’d come here.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” You respond.

She waits for you to continue.

You don’t know what to say, so you start from the side of the issue.

“Remember last year?”

You hear her sharp intake of breath, and then you wait to see what she’ll say.

“Yeah. Course I do.”

“And you remember what happened?”

“Couldn’t really forget it, could I?”

Ouch. She is bitter about this, but as you continue further into this topic, you really can’t fault her for that.

But this is it. This is the question that you need to ask, that you know she, if no one else, will be able to answer and you know that she’ll take what you say to the grave if you ask her too. Latula never stopped caring about you, even when you decided that you no longer needed her.

You take a deep breath.

“…How did you know that you needed help?”

Latula exhales, and you wait.

“Rez—I’m like—the worst person to talk to about that.  I mean—shit. I can’t—“

“But I can trust you.” You interject. “As much as I might doubt you in other areas, I believe that you are trustworthy in this, and I think that you would understand my desire to keep this a secret.”

“Sure.” She exhales loudly. “Sure. Look, Rez, I don’t know if I can. I can’t like, talk about it.”

You don’t like hearing her unsure like this. This was supposed to be quick and to the point, a conversation that would be informative and would provide you with important information about yourself and what you should do, and if you needed to worry about things going wrong like they had with your sister. You certainly weren’t supposed to be feeling pity for her, and none of this was a part of your plan. You remember the remaining chicken nuggets in your bag, and you extricate them, holding them out to her.

The laugh you hear as a result sounds enough like a sob to make you regret what you’re doing to some degree, but she takes them nonetheless.

She doesn’t talk for another minute or so, so you wait, again picking at the same string you’d discovered earlier.

“These’re cold and gross.” She mutters, and you start to think of a good reply when she continues. “I didn’t see I needed help. I like. I just didn’t. Popo mentioned it, but shit—I didn’t see it. Wouldn’t let myself admit that I wasn’t flying high. You know Mom, and you know how she is.”

“The best?”

“Sure. Go with that, if it’s what you want to do. I remember when you were in middle school.”

“That was a phase!”

“My point was more that I actually remember what it was like when you were, unlike her, but sure.”

You’re uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. You know that Latula and your mother don’t get along, but this isn’t something that you want to discuss with her. You admire your mother, and you don’t want to speak ill of her. She may not have always been there, but you’re sure it was for the best.

Latula continues.

“Mom really didn’t help. Sometimes it was worse with her? She just wanted the best from me, and it took years to realize that maybe what she wants isn’t really the best, and that it’s not just me.”

“You’re wasting your time with your major.”

“Sure.” There’s that laugh from her again, the one that sounds like she’s about to cry. “Whatever.”

You feel slightly guilty, so you concede with her in the only way you think you can.

“Mom was really busy then.” You’d rarely seen her last year—hah, seen. You haven’t been able to see anything clearly for several years now.

“Yeah.”

It’s silent now, except for a suspicious sniffling from Latula that you know for a fact isn’t her attempting to smell the chicken nuggets, and you slowly realize that you’ve butchered this conversation and any chances you had of getting the instruction that you needed, and if there’s any chance of saving it then you need to do so quickly.

“I don’t think I’m feeling like I should.”

A sharp intake of breath from Latula.

You continue.

“I don’t want to be around my roommates anymore—not even Kanaya—and I haven’t actually talked to Sollux in nearly a week.”

“That could be normal? Sometimes I don’t want to talk to mine.”

Latula’s voice is still awfully shaky, but she’s talking about this at least.

“Not really? I just don’t really care.”

That’s really hard to admit, as small as it might seem, and you don’t know if you can make yourself tell her that you skipped class today because you couldn’t stand the thought of getting up and having to go, of being forced to be cheerful and chipper and eager to learn.

“Like, you don’t care about them?”

“I don’t know?” You’e not sure how to explain it further.

“But it’s different.”

“Yes.”

Latula sighs yet again.

“Have you asked Mom about it?”

“Of course not!” You reply quickly, shocked by the absurdity of her question. “I’d not bother her with something like this!”

“Go figure.” There’s a bitterness in Latula’s tone, and it provides you with a shocking new revelation.

“You think that she should care about that? Or is it that I should trust her, unlike you did?”

“That’s a thing that Moms do.”

“Latula, I saw her last year, and I have no intentions of causing stress for her!”

“And I was so fucking terrible because I did?” There’s the bitterness again, seeping out of her words.

“Well—“ You don’t know what to say to that. Was it bad? You remember hearing your mother cry when she’d gotten the news, and you don’t like to think of your mother crying, under any circumstances.

“Look.” Latula interrupts your thoughts. “What I did—It was stupid, it was shitty, and I hate that it happened, and I’m so, so sorry—“ She’s starting to cry again, and you can hear it “—I just can’t—I can’t undo it. I can’t go back and help me, or try to fix it.”

This is awful. This is shitty to incredible levels of shit, and you have no desire to hear this version of your sister talk to you. More than anything, it makes you so nervous, so afraid that something like this will happen again, that if something really is wrong with you that you’ll end up like she did, and your mother will cry again, but this time you doubt she’ll have anyone to be there for her. She’d be alone, and you can’t let that happen to your mother. Latula is supposed to be the cool one, the one of the family who does what she wants and is always on top of things and completely in control, and for you, learning that she isn’t always that person had been earth shattering, and you don’t know what to do with this very visible and obvious reminder of that.

You put your hand on hers. It takes a little bit of searching and feeling your way around, but you find her hand, and you put yours over hers, because you honestly don’t know what to say. You know that you’re hard to talk with, to deal with and to interact with, but Latula’s usually so on top of things, and you don’t like to think that you might have hurt her and dragged her down this much.

“I believe that I may be depressed.”

You voice the words, make it real. Transfer it from a word that you’ve heard thrown around by people in public before, always dismissive in your ears, always someone else and never you,  because you are better than all of them, better than your sister and her anxiety, and more than all of them. You’re the unstoppable Terezi Pyrope, a girl who could handle being legally blind with flying colors, the one person who could handle Vriska Serket. You were so much, and you’re terrified of the thought of this being a part of you now.

Shit. Latula’s crying in earnest now, and you don’t know what to do to help her, how to calm her down, and you’re legitimately worried. Maybe you shouldn’t have told her? There’s a chance that this might be something that she shouldn’t  or can’t deal with?

“Porrim?” You call out the other’s name, hoping that she’s here, that she’ll know what to do in this situation, because you don’t know what to do. “Porrim?” You stand, calling out her name a little louder.

A door creeks open, and you hear foosteps.

“Latula.” Porrim is here, and you awkwardly move out of the way, unsure where to stand or go. You feel like you shouldn’t be here for this, but you don’t know where you could go, and for not the first time recently, you wish that you were able to see what’s taking place around you. Porrim is murmuring something to Latula, and again, you’re reminded of just how much you don’t know about your sister now, or her friends.

Another set of feel come shuffling into hearing, and you’re uncomfortable all over again.

“Tula?”

And that would be Mituna, making his entrance. You’re coming to the conclusion that he and Porrim must have been in the other room, and you don’t know what to think about the current situation, so you back away, moving till your back is against the wall. Pyral whines quietly, pressing his nose against your hand, and you know he can tell that you’re distressed. It’s easy to sink down to sit on the floor, arms wrapped around your knees and Pyral’s head resting on your shoulder as you wait, trying to interpret what’s going on from the blurry shapes that you can see.

You hate this, and in its own way, it makes you hate yourself a little bit more to know that you hurt Latula by allowing yourself to argue with her, that you’d thought that you needed to dissect what she was saying until you could see what was at the core of her issues to see if it compared to what you felt.

More time passes. You sit and wait. Latula eventually quiets, and you hear her mumbling to Porrim and Mituna, and you feel excluded and cut off from them, but you suppose that you deserve it to some degree.

Eventually, Latula rises, slowly and shakily, and then she hesitantly comes and sits at your side, Porrim carefully sitting at her other side. Mituna takes a moment, but he does eventually leave the room.

“Terezi,” Porrim begins. “Would you mind if I stay?”

“Popo’ll keep this shit quiet.” Latula adds, and you’d like to imagine that you were able to see Porrim shake her head at the nickname.

You honestly do have to think about that. Do you mind having Porrim here? Does that bug you, and after how you upset Latula, should you be denying her this comfort?

“That’s fine.” You eventually say, even if it isn’t completely true.

The three of you sit in silence for a few minutes, and you don’t know what to say.

Latula does, eventually.

“Last year I wasn’t in a good place. I was still trying to do what Mom wanted with school, and it just wasn’t healthy.”

You don’t know what to say to that complaint about your mother, and again, you attempt to wrap your head around the thought of her being wrong.

“I didn’t want to admit that?” She continues. “I couldn’t tell peeps. I guess—I know—I thought I wasn’t worth it. I was still in campus dorms then, and that was super shitty.” She takes another deep breath. “I told myself that I didn’t need help, or that someone else had it worse than I did, and that just kept going till it got to where it did.”

You know what comes next.

“I—I wanted—“ Her breath is coming in short gasps, and Porrim shooshes her. She doesn’t say anything, and you wish you knew what to do to help her, until she continues.  “I tried to—tried to stop it. Everything.” The words come out as a sob, and again, you’re taken back to the night when you’d gotten that call.

Tentatively, you reach out an arm to drape it over her shoulders, and you find that Porrim is already there, and you’re reminded that you don’t know much about your sister these days. Still, she shifts slightly so there’s room for you, and you place your arm over her shoulders too. Latula is shaking, and it worries you.

“I called Porrim.” Latula continues eventually. “And she—she got help. Had them come.”

You know the rest of this story.

“Yeah.” Your voice is small, and you’re at a loss for words. This is what you’re afraid of, why when you found yourself exhibiting the textbook symptoms of depression, just as you’d learned them when you’d researched them a year ago, you didn’t know what to do. You don’t want to end up where she was, and you don’t know what to say.

None of you really do, at first.

“…Does it get better?” Is the only thing that you can bring yourself to tentatively ask.

Latula is crying so much harder, and for some reason you find yourself starting to do the same, and you want nothing more than to hug your sister, because she is here and you have missed her so much, and you are afraid of what might or could happen. You barely notice when she chokes out a statement of agreement, confirming what you’ve wanted to hear so much, that there is some hope of things being better than this, better than not feeling anything at all.

You don’t know when Latula’s arms found their way around you, and you don’t know how long it took for your tears to stop, but when they did, she was still there, holding you.

“Rez—it can get better.” She whispers in your ear. “It can—it’s not easy, and anyone who tells you it’s easy is full of crap.”

“Latula,” you whisper back, afraid to admit this to even her, “I am afraid.”

She holds onto you, Pyral nervously licking at your arm in his own way of trying to comfort you, and it is good. Porrim is still there, you’re sure of that, but you aren’t worried about her presence anymore, because your sister is here for you, just like she’d always tried to be for all those years until things became too much for her.

“Rez, I get that. So much.”

The two of you stay like that for a while, and you aren’t keen to let go. Remaining like this would be ideal, but eventually your phone buzzes and you extricate yourself from her arms to pull it out, passing it over to her.

“Who’s it from?”

“Kanaya. She’s wondering where you are.”

“Will you tell her I’m here?”

“Sure.”

It’s quiet again for a few minutes after that, and you, Terezi Pyrope, for the first time in nearly a month, feel something close to hope, and it is good.

 


End file.
